Free Previews Discussion Thread - December 2020

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AMC+ is now officially a "Past Free Preview." ;)

SiriusXM The Message has now had its "special" channel number 9792 turned on. That only leaves two more SiriusXM channels (Coffee House and Symphony Hall) that are in free preview, but have not had their holiday mapping channels turned on yet.
SiriusXM The Message is now Christmas Spirit.

NBA League Pass had their channels turned on this morning, so it looks like a free preview may be coming up. No dates have been announced, and it looks like this one is going to be an HD-only preview.

(Now, I know what you all are thinking: How dare you make a post in the Free Previews Discussion Thread that is actually on-topic!) :D
 
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NBA League Pass had their channels turned on this morning, so it looks like a free preview may be coming up. No dates have been announced, and it looks like this one is going to be an HD-only preview.
Yep - earlier Dish removed all the SD channels from all 3 of their out of market packages, so even though it says online that it is SD/HD, there are only HD channels there. For the NBA, last year it was 5002-5061, where 5002 was SD, 5003 was HD, 5004 was SD, 5005 was HD, etc. Now it is just straight 5002-5031 as all HD channels. I do think that needs to be clearer on the Dish website as it says in order to receive the HD channels you need HD equipment - never says you have to have HD equipment.
 
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Yep - earlier Dish removed all the SD channels from all 3 of their out of market packages, so even though it says online that it is SD/HD, there are only HD channels there. For the NBA, last year it was 5002-5061, where 5002 was SD, 5003 was HD, 5004 was SD, 5005 was HD, etc. Now it is just straight 5002-5031 as all HD channels. I do think that needs to be clearer on the Dish website as it says in order to receive the HD channels you need HD equipment - never says you have to have HD equipment.
I can make some educated guesses about the reasons for this change. If you remember, in previous seasons, the leagues would provide Dish with SD feeds of each game. Dish was then allowed to supplement those SD feeds with the HD feeds of any RSN's that Dish actually carried. So, for one month in the fall of 2010, that left Dish with very few HD feeds to actually provide, since they simultaneously lost MSG (never to return) and had a dispute with the Fox Sports Net channels. Even when Dish was not having any disputes, that left Dish without HD feeds of many games, especially NHL games where two Canadian teams were playing each other. Also at the time, Dish only had limited bandwidth for HD RSN feeds, carrying all of the ones they still had only part-time, and not necessarily in HD for every game. (That part was later fixed, long before the current onslaught of RSN disputes took away most of those channels entirely.)

So, with so few HD feeds already available on Dish, to re-map to the out-of-market package channels, Dish likely switched to having the leagues provide HD feeds of each game instead. It is quite possible that the leagues will only give Dish one feed (SD or HD) as part of the package, but not both. Apparently, Dish is also not allowed to down-convert the league-provided HD feed to create an SD feed for the customers using SD equipment, either. Dish may still be allowed to supplement the HD feeds with any SD RSN feeds that Dish still carries. However, with so few RSN's still being carried (and a possible major dispute with at least some of the remaining RSN's on the near horizon) that leaves Dish with so few SD feeds that they must have decided that it would not be worth it to provide an SD version of the packages at all.

It is also important to consider that Dish will be beginning to completely phase out all of the remaining SD-only receivers at some point in the middle of the season. So, all of those customers who would still need SD feeds will likely be upgraded to HD receivers by the end of the season anyway. Dish may have had the option to pay extra in order to get league-provided SD feeds. However, Dish would have had to pay for those feeds for the entire season. Since Dish will not actually need those SD feeds for the entire season, they must have chosen not to pay for those feeds at all. By not carrying the SD feeds, that also gives the remaining SD-only sports package subscribers that much more incentive to go ahead and upgrade their equipment that much sooner, thus helping Dish complete the transition to all HD-capable receivers that much sooner.
 
SiriusXM The Message has now had its "special" channel number 9792 turned on. That only leaves two more SiriusXM channels (Coffee House and Symphony Hall) that are in free preview, but have not had their holiday mapping channels turned on yet.
SiriusXM Symphony Hall (9794) and SiriusXM Coffee House (9795) now have their "special" holiday mapping channels turned on.
 
NBA League Pass had their channels turned on this morning, so it looks like a free preview may be coming up. No dates have been announced, and it looks like this one is going to be an HD-only preview.
I can now confirm that NBA League Pass is in free preview, starting with this evening's games. There is also possible confirmation of an end date for the preview, thanks to a post in the NBA League Pass thread:
I received a letter from DISH a couple days ago saying it was auto renewing and to call them by January 12th if I wanted to cancel. Haven't watched any games yet. May try later.
Normally with these out-of-market sports packages, you cannot cancel them after the season starts, and after you have already been charged for them. So, if Dish is giving subscribers until January 12th to cancel NBA League Pass, then that must be when the free preview ends.
 
I can now confirm that NBA League Pass is in free preview, starting with this evening's games. There is also possible confirmation of an end date for the preview, thanks to a post in the NBA League Pass thread:

Normally with these out-of-market sports packages, you cannot cancel them after the season starts, and after you have already been charged for them. So, if Dish is giving subscribers until January 12th to cancel NBA League Pass, then that must be when the free preview ends.
An ad on one of the NBA League Pass channels gave the preview dates as December 22 - 29. There is still nothing about the preview on the mydish Free Previews page. Maybe Dish is getting a longer free preview than other providers get?
 
In this free preview of League Pass, Dish is using the RSN's that they used to have access to and not using the league feeds. The Fox RSN's and Altitude for sure. Being in Chicago, I can't tell if they are using NBC Sports Chicago on 5007, but my guess is they are. (You can tell that the Fox RSN's are not using the league feed because the tickers come on - the league feeds are clean feeds)
 
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In this free preview of League Pass, Dish is using the RSN's that they used to have access to and not using the league feeds. The Fox RSN's and Altitude for sure. Being in Chicago, I can't tell if they are using NBC Sports Chicago on 5007, but my guess is they are. (You can tell that the Fox RSN's are not using the league feed because the tickers come on - the league feeds are clean feeds)
Also, the channels that were supposed to be showing the Thunder at Rockets game that got postponed were actually showing World Poker Tour.
 
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It is now December 26, and most of the holiday music themes on the audio channels have ended.

939 Soulful Holidays is now Mo' Soul
9787 Classical Holidays is now Intermezzo
9788 Modern Holiday is now Songbook
9789 Country Christmas is now SiriusXM Prime Country
9791 Holiday Soul is now SiriusXM Soul Town
9792 Christmas Spirit is now SiriusXM The Message
9794 Holiday Pops is now SiriusXM Symphony Hall
9795 Acoustic Christmas is now SiriusXM Coffee House
9844 Holiday Traditions is now SiriusXM 40's Junction
9845 Hallmark Channel Radio is now SiriusXM Love
9847 Country Holiday is now Country Gold
9849 A Very Jazzy Holiday is now Jazz Traditions

It is a shame that Dish never bothered to do a free preview of all of the holiday music channels, like they have done in years past. My sister never did see the collapsible channel 98 with all of the holiday music channels on her Wally with her Welcome Pack subscription. This is in spite of the screensaver ad for the holiday channels specifically listing channel 98 as "free to all" or words to that effect. Many (but not all) of the above-listed channels have been available on their regular channel numbers for free all year. However, the convenient holiday mapping channels never got turned on, unless you actually subscribe to the channels as part of your package.
 
In more fun Free Preview-related news, the mydish Free Previews page is acting up. (At least in Firefox. I haven't checked other browsers.) Now, whenever I click on the "See channels that were recently available in free preview" link on that page, the list immediately collapses again, before I even get a chance to scroll down.
 
Mine does the same thing - only it opens by itself a second time. So I click on it and it opens, it closes, then it opens again :biggrin
 
Mine does the same thing - only it opens by itself a second time. So I click on it and it opens, it closes, then it opens again :biggrin
No such luck for me. Just click, open, close. Click, open, close. Repeat until I get tired of clicking.
Ha! All I had to do was complain in a different thread. (The AMC+ thread) Now, I see the same behavior that you described. At least now I can actually get the list to stay open. It is still annoying when it briefly collapses before expanding again, though.
 
Clicking to collapse the list does the same thing: it collapses, then briefly expands, before collapsing again. With the earlier problem, it was like each click was acting like a double-click. Now, it has been changed so that each click acts like a triple-click.
 
Clicking to collapse the list does the same thing: it collapses, then briefly expands, before collapsing again. With the earlier problem, it was like each click was acting like a double-click. Now, it has been changed so that each click acts like a triple-click.
So, all I had to do was post that description here, and now it is back to the double-click action (expand / collapse with each click). I give up.
 

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